We Are The Winds

WE ARE THE W I N DS

By David Pendery

We are the winds. It is we who carry man’s complaints. On autumn nights you heard us whistling in chimneys, howling in the stove, as the autumn rain cried on the roof. On winter nights you heard us whisper in the snow-laden tr ees. Out on the storm- swept sea You heard our whining in the ropes and sails. You heard us, creatures of air, who learned our songs in passing through the lungs of men. The hospital, the battlefield taught us what to sing. Most we learned in the nursery where the newborns cry, mewl, and scr eam with the pain of coming alive. We are the winds, howling, whining, whistling, wailing. A Dream Play, August Strindberg

Table of Contents Say What You Said Before 3

The Story 7

The Wind Returns 9

Dog in the Manger 14

21 December 1986 16

A Sketch 18

Handful of Petals 19

Portrait 21

There are Reds too, and Gargoyles 23 © 2009 David Pendery

Cover photo: magnus rosendahl 3

Say What You Said Before

“The hell I am.” “You are, you’re trying to win her.” “Joe, you don’t understand. She’s a married woman.” “You’re telling me!” “So, we had dinner. We’re just friends. That’s all I want from her, Joe.” “You’re lying.” Joe lifted his cup to his lips and sipped his coffee. His friend looked away. “You’re going to get yourself killed.” “Oh please, Joe.” A few moments passed. Joe leaned back in his chair and looked at his friend. “Well, she is beautiful, isn’t she, Dan?” “You’re telling me!” And for the first time since they had sat down for coffee after their workday, the two friends smiled. They were talking about an associate of theirs. “Why do you pursue her, Dan?” “I’m not ‘pursuing’ her. I know her situation. We’re just friends.” “You’re in love with her.” “Not at all!” “You said you were.”

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“That was before.” “You said it more than once, Dan.” “Is there something wrong with loving someone?” “There can be. You’re going to get hurt.” “Joe, it’s not like that.” “The hell it’s not. You’re trying to win her.” Dan looked away. “How does she feel about this?” “She sees me, doesn’t she?” “How often?” “Once or twice a week.” “Every week?” “Almost.” “Christ! You’re trying to win a married woman.” “It’s not like that.” “It is.” “Alright it is.” The two friends were sitting outdoors, on an oak deck that extended out of the coffee house and over the water of the bay. The weather was sharply cool, and the breeze was fresh and the water before them was choppy with whitecaps. The wind foamed the whitecaps and jets and sprays of water peeled off of the crests. “Why do I want a woman I cannot have, Joe?” But of course there is no good answer to such a question.

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“Weren’t you interested in another woman…what was her name?” “I’m not in love with her.” “So you are in love with

!” and Joe spoke their associate’s name.

“That’s not what I mean.” “It is Dan, but either you don’t know it, or you won’t say it.” He paused. “Or you can’t say it.” “Is this some kind of analysis?” “Go to hell.” They sipped their coffee and people dressed in warm, fall clothing came and sat at the outdoor tables or sat inside and talked together. Around them were the sounds of the wharf, and gulls fluttered nearby, perched on the deck railing, or marched under the tables looking for scraps. “Back off, Dan. She won’t allow herself to fall for you. There are other women for you.” “I suppose you’re right.” “It wasn’t meant to be.” “Yes.” “Inevitably, you will be hurt.” “Yes.” “But you don’t care.” “No.” “Then say what you said before, Dan. Say what you said at the beginning.”

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Dusk was near. The light was fading and both men declined more coffee when the waitress offered it to them. A few chill drops of rain fell in the evening air. The two men were good friends and Joe felt they would not talk about this subject again until the thing he felt would happen had happened. Joe looked down at his cup and saucer and Dan looked away, to the empty beaches across the steely water. As he looked down, Joe said, “Go ahead and say it, Dan. Say what you said before.” And he looked up and their eyes met and Dan hesitated momentarily and then said, “I really do love her Joe. I love her so much!”

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The Story

I knew that there was a story in the bronze-colored girl's stepping from behind a tree and into my path that sunny day in February in Golden Gate Park. Anyone could have seen that though. I mean anyone. Consider this: I'm riding my bicycle through the park and it's a beautiful day. Sun's smiling, sky's friendly, I have no cares. I'm pedaling slowly, threading my way through tapestry crowds, warming up for a good, hard ride. Ahead of me, just before the handball courts, there's a turn in the path. There, from behind a mossy eucalyptus tree steps a bronze-colored girl, about eight years of age. She has sad eyes and hair black and shiny as a panther's. In her hands she holds a small, orange plastic bowl and a yellow colander. Without hesitating—you know how bold children can be—her head turns, tilts back, her eyes meet mine and she asks: "Have you seen any butterflies today?" I paused and turned on my bicycle. I looked back toward her. "No," I told her. "I'm sorry, I haven't." She gazed at me blankly, nodded slightly, and then turned and walked away. I looked at her small back, her pretty figure, the plastic kitchen utensils in her hands. Then I turned and rode on.

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Now do you see my point, about the story? The story is ours. It is yours, it is mine. It is the bronze-colored girl's. We have all been twilled into a gentle fabric that can be as strong as steel mail or as fine as lace. The choice is ours. She was a bronze-colored girl, about eight. She wore a plaid skirt, a sleeveless blouse, and her arms were dirty and scratched. Her feet were bare. In her hands she held an orange plastic bowl and a yellow colander. She had pretty teeth, hair like a panther's, and sad sparkling eyes. I never found out her story, but there was one there, all right. Anyone could have seen that.

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The Wind Returns

“Rob, may I come in?” I looked up from my homework on the kitchen table. He stood framed in the doorway, tall, with curly gray hair. Hair grayer than I remembered. Grayer than I would have imagined. “Of course, Dad. Come in.” Of course, he was the last person I expected to see on this dreary Sunday afternoon. You learned to live without the small expectations you had once cherished. In fact, I had ceased to anticipate his measured step on the walk at 5:30 after his workday, the way I once had. Then the faint aroma or change in the atmosphere that presaged my father. There was nothing magical or fantastic about these subtle heraldings of my father’s approach. It was simply a talent that he possessed, as natural as his arresting voice when he had read aloud to me when I was a boy. “What brings you back?” “Well, I thought we could talk.” And I felt a wash of bitterness as my eyes met his clear eyes, deep set in his lined face. Intelligent, learned eyes, with no trace of maliciousness. But I knew. Knew of his supreme act of malice. The premonitions, the painful break, the leaving. And I thought, what have to do with him? I could turn away now, emotionless, final. But I did not.

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Across the years, bridging our parting, there were connections. Unasked questions, unrealized emotions, unshed tears. Now we were squared off, and I did not know who would prevail. Two foolish reavers of time. Reavers of time, Rob? You’ve been reading Faulkner. You always loved words. You were reading by the time you were three. And how happy you were when you received good marks on your essays in school.” “Those were the last times I was happy, Dad. You stole more than time when you left.” “Is that true, Rob?” “Of course it is!” “Well you must know, that I’m truly sorry about that. Truly sorry. I had no intention of stealing anything when I left, least of all time. But of course I did. What I did was act of inveterate selfishness, Rob, which I never wished to impart in you. It was a function of my time. My aim was to keep you off an inexorable path to becoming…me, Rob.” “Well you put me on a path, Dad, and although our paths are different, our destinations may be the same.” “No, Rob, for you have something that I never had: self-assuredness.” Yes, I thought, there were things I was sure of. I was sure of unsuredness, and sure of mistrust. Sure of loss. Sure of an intruder waiting in the night when I would try, and fail, to sleep. A shapeless intruder, a mercenary, impermeable as blackness. “Jesus Rob, I knew that intruder!” spoke my father.

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I felt transparent. I was talking to a phantom, a man who could read my thoughts. Understand me if I felt a little weak at this point. “Don’t you see, Dad? You are that intruder.” “Why you…sophist!” he said. “Yes, and a good one, Dad.” And for the first time I had hear in so long, unless he was drunk, my father burst out with peals of laughter. He had always been such a humorless son-of-a-bitch. His laughter subsided. “You’re mistaking seriousness for humorlessness, Rob. Yes, I was serious, much too serious. My generation took life seriously. But for all the wrong reasons.” “You were closer to your death.” “Yes, sometimes out of pure recklessness. Or hunger for glory, or pride, or ignorance. As I said, ‘for all the wrong reasons.’ This is our legacy. Bad as that may be, your generation’s apathy is a lousy testament, Rob.” “Fuck my generation!” I snapped angrily. “Your act was the very height of apathy. Now the burden that you shirked has become mine.” My father looked down sheepishly. I forbid myself from seeing my self in him. “Don’t be self-pitying, Rob. Our burdens are not similar. You still don’t understand, do you? It’s not how a man dies, but how he lives. Get on without me, that’s the point of life. And death too. And do it well. You’re capable. What I did was a necessary evil. He refused to see this from my point of view.

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“Until you stop seeing it through a lens of self-deception, Rob, your point of view is…,” he searched for the word he wanted, an old habit of his. “Unrealistic,” he finished. “Now you sound like my father.” And we laughed, but cold wrapped my body. I felt no amicability toward this man. His cruelty, his so-called ‘necessary evil,’ like the passing of a sirocco, had left me burned and brittle. You must be strong, Rob. I was possessed of the worst values. Steeped in a cockeyed word view. Absolutely backward. This broke me. But you have humanity, and farsightedness, qualities that you suppress with, of all things, timidity and inaction.” “Don’t try to escape responsibility for your act, Dad.” “Don’t you try to escape responsibility. What I did was ruthless, compassionless, but not without aim. I killed my lack of compassion that it could never take root in you. And it hasn’t, truly. You must believe me, Rob. I killed a dictator.” A dictator. And like all dictators he had his followers, his believers, even his friends. And that was me. believing in this finely principled but foolish man’s memory. Now he talked of killing off a generation! As in his life he was again trying to make the world a better place, if only with a nudge in the right direction. But always trying a little hard than was good for him. The right reasons, the wrong decisions. Very much like me. “Rob, I’ll have to be going of course.” “Of course. Dad, when you left….” “We’ll never be able to say it, will we Rob? We’ll never be able to face each other and say it plainly, and simply.” “Well what happened was not a simple thing, Dad.”

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He paused and said, “Well you’ve got me there, Rob.” I smiled at his concession. Part of me did not want him to leave. I felt our time receding, and so I asked him, “Why does time play tricks, Dad? You should know.” “Time doesn’t play tricks, Robbie, wasted time does.” The old smartass. The old, graying, humorless, selfish, finely principled, thieving smartass. With his philosophical notions. My money says he stole that line from a book he read somewhere. But I conceded, “Well, you’ve got me there, Dad.” Then he was leaving and as he left he walked to me, clutched my shoulder and lifted my chin in his hand. Again our eyes met and by god I think I saw a hint of fatherly pride there. But allow him that. He was only a man after all, and if his tragedy is that he thought he might transcend that station, then allow him that. And Father, for now, I’ll continue to believe in your right reasons, if not your wrong decisions. I’ll abide. “Rob, I’ll be going. Thank you. And good luck.” A simple parting, unlike our first. I looked away. I am always a little embarrassed when I find myself crying.

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Dog in the Manger

He walked into the bar and sat down at one of the tables. I was wiping off one of the other tables. I looked at him, and I could see that he wasn’t a regular customer. He was dressed neatly, with a copper-colored scarf looped around his neck, and—I must say—a very smart looking jacket. But I didn’t like him, sitting there alone among all the empty tables. Why didn’t he just sit at the bar? After a few minutes, I walked by him and told him that we did not have table service, and that he’ have to order whatever he wanted at the bar. He answered, “Okay, I’ll be right there,” and right then I decided I’d ignore him and walked back behind the bar. He sat there and his back was to me and he just sat there. I’d run him out, soon enough. He was not a regular customer and this is a bar where people like to come and see familiar faces. Besides, he’d just walked in off of the street and regular customers might not like that. I wouldn’t blame them. I wiped the bar and ignored him. After a few minutes, I noticed that he’d approached the bar and stood there with a pair of winter gloves in his hand. Of course, he wanted a drink, but I just passed him by a couple of times, avoiding his eyes. I’ve done this before. He got the message, and sure enough, he stepped from the bar, turned, and left through the front door. It’s a swinging door, just like you see on old Gunsmoke episodes. I must say, he didn’t seem bothered. I

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didn’t care. He was not a regular customer and I didn’t like him anyway. As I wiped the bar I overhead two customers talking. They were complimenting the jacket he was wearing.

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21 December 1986

“Well, anyway,” he was thinking, “you have to grow up sooner or later. And part of growing up is learning that life can be hard. ‘Nothing good is for free,’ and that sort of thing. Seen in that light, I think I can handle all of this. I just wish that it had not happened at such a vulnerable time. Some damage was done, to be sure, but isn’t that what growing up is all about? I think it must be.” He wasn’t one to complain, but maybe things had been a little more difficult for him. One can’t put much stock in luck or fortune, good or bad, but nobody could dispute that there had been some serious problems. He thought that maybe he was a little too inhibited and that if maybe he were a little more confident or forceful, a little more insistent of his own needs, well…things might have been different. “But listen to me! If Mike could hear me!” he was thinking. But of course he and Mike had lost touch long ago. What had really happened there? Had he outgrown Mike? Or had Mike outgrown him? It didn’t matter, because they didn’t write or call each other any more, and surely that too was part of the growing up. Yes, but there were times when it would have been nice to have heard from Mike. Or Frank or even Joanne. Is this business of growing up so important that we can’t call each other?

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“It doesn’t matter,” he was thinking. “I’m quite grown up now and very happy with the new me, however much it hurt once. “Yes, however much it hurt.”

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A Sketch

Oh, I don’t know why he did what he did. I mean, they were fighting and all, but…I just saw him last Saturday. Do you what he said? He told me that he was worried that maybe she was going crazy, that she was becoming unbalanced. That that’s why she was doing what she was doing. That maybe she was going to kill herself! That shook me at first, but then I had to laugh—inside of course. That is really not like her. He was pretty upset—no kidding, right? I was more worried about him though—he was drinking. Lot’s, too. But what was I supposed to do? He’s a grown man, you know. He was talking about killing the guy, and how all he wanted was to have her back. Another chance, you know. Of course, I could understand that. I got him off that killing stuff, though. Of course, I cared a lot for him, and when we finished talking—about three hours—I thought he was okay. I really didn’t’ think he was the type and then this happens. I don’t know why he did what he did.

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Handful of Petals

The old artist sat in a low chair facing the beds of roses. He was painting a group of different roses in an arrangement, as a study of their shapes and colors, on his pad. His watercolor was skillful, as yet unfinished, and passersby stopped to admire his work, and then walked on. The old artist wore a straw hat with a weathered band and his face was sunburned and covered with gray stubble. Youth, though, lit his transparent blue eyes. He commented to me about the different techniques he was using and the various difficulties in painting the petals and the different colors. The petals in his painting were lifelike and beautifully rendered. The old artist happily explained how he would fill the background with the vivid green of each rose's leaves. Each leaf, he explained, had its own characteristics, just as the different petals did. There would also be blue in the background, he said, and I thought that he must mean the sky. More people stopped and watched him work, but strangely, he did not speak to them, only to me, and I think that they may have though that I was his apprentice. Then a little girl stopped to watch, and as the old artist, she too had a handful of petals. She walked between the rose bushes picking up loose petals, and her hand, stuffed

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with the petals, resembled a small rose itself. Perhaps later she would fling the petals into the air, the breeze lifting and scattering them, then raining them down around her. "So pretty," she shyly said to the artist, pointing to his painting. Then she walked away, her attention once again on the many loose petals under the roses. The old artist said after her, "You can do it. You can do it too. Just practice. Practice very hard..." The little girl turned and seemed to ponder his words. Then she turned again and strolled away. "She doesn't know it now," said the old artist. "She doesn't know she can do it yet, but she will. She will."

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Portrait

You hadn’t seen me yet, but from across the room I saw you and I thought, “I wonder who her lover is, for surely she has one.” You were shy, almost self-effacing, and I was immediately taken in. You were perhaps too shy (almost self-effacing), and not beautiful in a structured or common way. Your clothing framed you well, but were at that time a tad overweight, and you were always casting your eyes downward. Your eyes were so dark they were like night with starry points of light. Do you know that I could hear your voice, as soft as it is, from across the room and it was beautiful and sweet, clear, evocative, and sexy, sexy, SEXY? But the questions remained: Who was your lover, for surely you had one. I saw you and I knew there was so little you’d have to do, leave it to the man to impress and to win you. Your finesse and your manner, without trying (even knowing), you moved me.

I screwed up my courage and spoke to you, I stammered and stuttered, became confused, You didn’t know then, but it was scent, To compose myself, I took a deep breath,

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You started to giggle, I started to sweat,

I don’t know how, but I got by all right, Later, when you brushed against my body, my head felt light.

She had no lover, she has one now, and for your information, her yes and her voice are even better at certain times of the night, when our window is open, and the air is just right.

Another time, I’ll you of her skin, Or maybe her hair, when I see you again, Her favorite music, a dream she had, Sometimes for no outward reason, she feels sad, You may not understand this, sometimes I don’t, But sometimes she’s still shy, even when we’re alone.

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There are Reds too, and Gargoyles

He had to tell her. They were sounding again last night, keening through the rain-heavy air, and so he would have to tell her all about them. From his table he took a sheet of yellow paper, his favorite pen with the ink that flowed smoothly, and began—

Dearest Fran,

I wanted to tell you about the foghorns. When I’m laying in bed and it’s late and quiet, and its raining and misty (which it always seems to be here), I hear them moan and they are comforting and gentle and I guess they’re what loneliness must sound like, Fran. I guess I have that sound memorized by now, because I’m still not sleeping much—there is just too much to think about. I’m sorry things aren’t moving along a little more quickly, Fran, but it’s true that I like the people here and I guess I can’t think of any other place I’d rather be—except with you!

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Of course, I came here to accomplish certain things Fran, to reach certain goals. And I’m not leaving until I do, come hell or high water, I guess. But what an unusual place, Fran, with all of the different people! Would you believe that I’ve me two people from Orlando already? Well it’s true. And it seems there are an incredible number of foreigners here, all jabbering away in exotic languages that I just can’t seem to pick up. It’s true though, that you can understand a little just by watching. Even the buildings here are unusual, Fran. Some are as white as temples, with domed roofs and trimmed in gold, but most are in somber shades of blue and gray. There are reds too, and gargoyles. Jean has written me about what has happened, Fran, and though I don’t think I should take sides, it sounds as if you behaved most irrationally. I wish you two could resolve your difficulties. All of these years and I guess it’s hurt me a lot. But I wrote to tell you about the foghorns, and how they sound at night and how I wish you could come and visit and we could walk on the beach and chase the gulls. The poor gulls, Fran! When the wind blows madly they are buffeted and helpless and have to fly wherever it blows them. Their wings become rigid and they just ride and dip and sail—quite out of control. We could collect seashells too, and I miss you very much, Fran.

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Fran, I think I’m feeling sad now with thinking of you. Will you write soon and tell me how you are and, if you can, send me another picture of the two of you? I guess I’ll be going, Fran. Please think about me (and the foghorns) and tell me you’re coming to see me?

Much love,

And then he signed his name and laying the letter aside, he gazed out into the wet, heavy air and the rain poured down and he knew the foghorns would be sounding again that night.

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